Dostoevsky is best known for his great novels The Idiot, Crime & Punishment, Devils, and The Brothers Karamazov but he also wrote short stories. This collection features three stories, “A Gentle Creature,” “White Nights,” and “The Dream of a Ridiculous Man.” Dostoevsky explores the inner lives of shy people, dreamers, and intellectuals living in a brutal society. Loneliness and estrangement from community are Dostoevsky’s constant themes. This edition is a modern translation by Alan Myers with an Introduction and useful notes by W. J. Leatherbarrow. If you’re interested in Dostoevsky’s short fiction, this is a good place to start.
(This completes the February 2010 portion of my Short Story Reading Challenge. I will read and review one short story collection per month in 2010. To find out more about the Short Story Reading Challenge, be sure to click: “http://theshortstorychallenge.blogspot.com/”>Short Story Reading Challenge.
In 1954, Galaxy and Simon & Schuster ran a contest inviting science fiction readers to write a novel. The winning novel would be serialized in Galaxy and then published in hardcover by Simon & Schuster. Well, a year went by and the editors at Galaxy and Simon & Schuster determined that none of submitted novels were worth publishing. They approached Lester del Rey and Frederik Pohl to write an acceptable “winning” entry. That’s how Preferred Risk by the pseudonymous “Edson McCann” came to be published. It’s the story of a future world run by The Company, an insurance agency. If you’ve read any of the C. M. Kornbluth and Frederik Pohl sociological SF novels like Gladiator-at-Law where the world is run by law firms, you’ll know what you’re in for. Preferred Risk doesn’t compare with classics like The Space Merchants, where advertising agencies run the world, but I found reading it great nostalgic fun. And, I love the wrap-around Richard Powers’ cover! 
Everybody knows about Phil Spector and his “Wall of Sound” but Spector had a lot of help from Jack Nitzsche who was a key arranger and conductor. Nitzsche’s career spanned decades, but I think he did his best work in the Sixties. He worked with dozens of groups like the Righteous Brothers, Buffalo Springfield, Crazy Horse, the Crystals, the Rolling Stones, and the Everly Brothers. The Lonely Surfer is an oddity in the Jack Nitzsche oeuvre. It’s an instrumental album from 1963. Later in his career, Nitzsche wrote film music for several movies including One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and An Officer and A Gentleman. That film music owes a debt to “The Lonely Surfer.” To listen to “The Lonely Surfer” just click 
Amy Bloom writes stories in a sassy style that explore dysfunctional relationships. Like when a stepmother has sex with her step-son after her husband dies. Or two couples who break into an adulterous couple and a clueless couple. Clearly, there’s a market for this kind of fiction. Amy Bloom is an accomplished writer who handles her characters with confidence as their lives disintegrate. Raymond Carver and Bobbie Ann Mason wrote these kinds of stories too, but they usually deal with folks lower on the socio-economic spectrum. Bloom prefers middle-class Baby Boomers. If these kinds of domestic destruction stories appeal to you, you’ll like Where the God of Love Hangs Out. GRADE: B-
I don’t know about you, but I can listen to k. d. lang sing all day long. Her voice is crystal-clear and distinctive. You don’t have to guess who’s singing when a k. d. lang song is playing on the radio. This collection is more than a glorified “Greatest Hits” compilation. There are alternative versions of some of k. d. lang’s best known songs, plus some rare material I’ve never heard before–and I own every CD k. d. lang ever released. This collection comes in two versions: the “plain vanilla” (cheaper version) and this edition with the bonus live CD and the DVD. I recommend the complete edition. If you only know k. d. lang from her seminal renditions of “Hallelujah,” “Constant Craving,” or “Crying,” you’re in for the time of your life when you listen to Recollection! GRADE: A
Even if you’re not a big hockey fan, this game is worth your attention. The Canadians are under enormous pressure to win this game in front of their home crowd while the U.S. team is loosey-goosey. Ryan Miller, pictured above, is Team USA’s goalie and a Buffalo Sabre so, of course, my sympathies are with him. I expect plenty of hitting and scoring. NBC and the CBC are scheduling this game in Prime Time tonight so they must feel the same way!
